


This is Not What I Had Planned

by orphan_account



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7451287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arin fucked up. He tries to call Danand solve this. Will he even pick up the phone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Not What I Had Planned

It became a mantra that Arin repeated to himself, over and over. He raised his voice and lowered it, trying to find the right cadence and flow to say it with. 

He paced up and down his house, skipping lunch and eventually dinner too. He couldn't stop moving. He couldn't stop shaking. Every time he paused in the middle of his hallway or his living room, he looked down at his hands. They were always shaking so hard he had to clench them into fists and press them to his head. 

It was almost ten o' clock at night already. Should he call now? Or should he wait till morning and give himself a little more time to figure out the right things to say? Would he be able to wait that long without chickening out and hoping it would all just peter out between them?

But inside, Arin knew that unless he did something, it wouldn't peter out.

He had to do this now.

"Okay," Arin said to himself, taking as big a breath as his lungs could hold. He let it out slowly, counting to ten with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he repeated, one more time, what he would say.

"I know that you're mad at me Dan. I know that, but please hear me out. I...fuck." Arin stopped himself mid-sentence. Would he even get that far into his speech? Or would Dan just hang up at the first hint of Arin's voice? Why was apologizing so damn hard?

Arin stood in the middle of his living room, running his hands through his own greasy head of hair. Man, he really needed a shower. And a fresh change of clothes.

Arin covered his face with his hands, trying to block out the world and whatever he had done to be in this position. He tried, instead, to place himself back in the memories he had shared with Dan prior to this. Before all of the emotions and feelings got in the way of a simple friendship. Before he watered a seed of doubt that grew into a solid reality for both he and Dan. Before they were together. Before...when they were just Arin and Danny: best friends.

He knew that it didn't happen this way, but now, when Arin looked back at all the times before he and Dan hooked up, their friendship had happened in the form of a montage. And everything had some filter on it, like a blurry light box filter they used in cheesy dream sequences in movies. But that's because that was what his life was like with Dan before. A movie. A perfect one. Some people, critics, say that a movie with no conflict ultimately has no substance. But that wasn't true. The movie he had made with Dan had been more than perfect, so fun, so heart breakingly full of LOVE. He was fine without all the contention coming in and ruining it.

And in that moment, burying his face in between his fingers, he watched his movie.

\-------

He saw himself on the couch, pondering. "Who in the world could replace someone like Jon?" He said to himself. Then a lightbulb went off in his head. Hell, he almost said 'ding!'. Dan. Of course.

He heard himself talking with Dan on that first play-through they did together. Stiff commentary. Not too stiff. But cardboard stiff. Yet, still fun.

Arin saw himself slaving over the table with Dan, trying to plan the perfect wedding between he and Suzy. Then the thought flashed forward TO the wedding. Arin in his top hat, Suzy in her dress that made her look like an absolute goddess. It was almost like a camera pan. He first saw Barry, Ross, Suzy, and...Dan. They were all smiling.

He saw himself in a crumpled heap on the grump couch, sobbing like an animal as Dan sat beside him and let him weep. Arin heard himself saying, "Why did she leave? Why did she leave me?". And he felt Dan's hand on his back, saying that Suzy had no idea what she just let go. And he remembered himself never believing that until years later. Just recently. 

His life jumped a few years forward to Arin and Dan on the couch. Dan was wrapped up in his blanket, burrito style, and Arin sat cross legged next to him. Arin's voice bubbled over with excitement at explaining to Dan that he wanted to start a band. A band with Brian and Dan. 

A few months later. Papers upon papers of discarded band names littered the table. Until Arin's head popped up from its place on his hand as he said, "Starbomb."

He saw himself in the recording studio, watching in awe as Dan belted out the lyrics he and Arin had written together. Arin watched the way Dan's brows furrowed when he had to yell and the way he couldn't help closing his eyes when he went for the high notes. 

Flashes of them going through grumps popped in and out of Arin's mind. The flashes of his life together with Dan kept coming, more frantic and blurry with every passing frame until suddenly, everything stopped moving.

A single frame dominated over the rest in Arin's mind.

It was like a polaroid photo. Black and white. Grainy. But not so grainy that he couldn't see it clearly. It was a frame of Arin and Dan. And they were hugging.

So..what? He and Dan had hugged hundreds of times before. What was different about this one?

Without a second's thought, Arin knew. It was the time they hugged after Arin confessed his feelings to Dan. He remembered stumbling over his words and his face burning and his legs getting all shaky.

And he remembered Dan's smile after Arin got it all out. It was a smile that started in the bottom of your heart, then made its way up. It was a smile that didn't need puppet strings to recreate. It was a smile that was instant and true and full of every good emotion that Arin knew to exist. And then they hugged. A hug that slammed together, eliminating all and any space between them. It was a hug that said, "I love you too."

\- ---

The credits on Arin's movie started to roll, and he let his fingers drop from his face. All the memories faded away as he was swallowed whole by the current situation. He couldn't live in the past. He had to live in the now. Even if 'in the now' was a really shitty place for Arin to be.

Arin finally allowed himself to sit on the couch in his living room. He slid his phone out of his pocket and stared at the black screen.

"Okay," He said to himself. "Apologize. No matter what he says, apologize. Remember what you're gonna say."

By the time he turned the phone on, opened up his contacts, selected Dan's name, and held the phone to his ear, his fingers had gone numb and cold. So much so that he actually had to switch hands and hold the phone up to his left ear. He felt like he was walking on a tightrope above a vat of lava. One wrong step and...it was all over.

There was ringing. A pause. More ringing. Another pause. A third ring. And a click.

"Hello?" 

The one word alone almost sent Arin into a panic attack. He opened his mouth to start his speech. He knew what he wanted to say. What he felt he needed to say.

All he managed was a quiet, "How's it going?"  
There was a small pause on Dan's end of the line. Enough of a pause to give Arin the feeling that he could start his speech. But before he got a word out, Dan interrupted.

"So...I was...what? I was your emotional...punching bag?" Dan asked, with more venom than a rattle snake. It was then that Arin felt like he was the one being punched.

His throat was dry as a desert. "No, I didn't...I didn't mean it that way."

Dan's voice came out shaky, dangerously quiet. "You can't do that to me man."

Without warning, a little anger bubbled up to the surface. Why, Arin didn't know. But he heard it in his own voice when he said, "Oh because it's so sad to remember the good times between us isn't it?"

And Dan didn't miss a beat. "You're the one who instigated it! With that, like, 'Oh why didn't you kiss me?' So obviously you only hooked up with me that night to kiss me. Like, you wouldn't have brought it up if that wasn't the case."

Arin's hands were shaking so badly that he almost dropped the phone. It hurt so much to hear the pain in Dan's voice. He didn't realize it was this bad. "I wanted it to work out."

"Work out how? By you verbally attacking me? Like I was supposed to read your mind? How the hell do I know what you want unless you tell me?"

The words almost burst out of him at this point. He was desperate to explain himself to Dan even though he knew he wasn't doing it right. He felt like he was watching a horror movie with a really dumb character. And that character is about to walk into the room everyone knows the killer is in. And the whole audience is screaming "No! Turn around, you idiot!" but the person just keeps going. They just open the door and don't make it two steps inside the room before the killer slits their throat.

Arin felt like the dumb character. He knew he was making it worse but he couldn't stop himself from talking. "I thought you knew!" He forced himself to lower his voice. "I thought you wanted it from the get-go and...and when it didn't work out...I thought I messed up. I didn't mean to make you feel that way Dan."

There was a bit of a silence.

"What if I don't believe that?"

Arin was struck silent. 

His heart almost stopped beating in his chest. But the only way he knew it didn't was because he could hear it. He could hear his heart pumping, he could hear the blood trying desperately to send oxygen up to Arin's brain, because he suddenly felt dizzy.

Everything about Arin's speech went away. He couldn't remember anything he had prepared to say because it didn't matter. Dan didn't believe him. Dan thought Arin did it on purpose. 

Arin's voice came out like broken glass. "Come on man."

When Dan spoke again, his voice said he knew he had hurt Arin with that line. But that didn't stop him because HE was still hurt. "No. You can't just...play with my feelings like that."

"I didn't mean to play with your feelings."

Dan spit the words out. "Well, you did. It doesn't matter what you meant. It's what I heard. How I took it."

'I know. God I know Dan. Please, please understand. Let me EXPLAIN.' Arin thought. But it wasn't that he couldn't explain because Dan wouldn't let him. He couldn't explain because there was nothing TO explain. He just wanted to apologize. But somehow, an entire foot had been shoved right inside Arin's big mouth. And for the first time since he had met Dan, he was without words. As if his entire vocabulary had disappeared.   
"I didn't--" 

"Arin, if I say that you hurt me, you don't get to decide that you didn't."

It replayed like an echo. If I say that you hurt me, you don't get to decide that you didn't.

Arin's words started tripping over one another. They sputtered like broken transmission on a car and fell on top of each other. "I'm...I know, Dan. I know...I'm sorry, I know that. I know I hurt you I'm...I'm sorry Dan. Please don't let it end this way."

There was a long pause at the end of Dan's line. A loooooong pause. The only hint that Dan hadn't hung up was the faint hum of connection between the two phones. Arin swallowed. He swallowed his pride. His anger. He wanted to hug Dan in his arms the way he liked to. With one hand cradling Dan's head like he was trying to hold him and never let go, and the other hand wrapped around Dan's waist. He wanted to be hugged by Dan the way he always was. With Dan's head in the curve of Arin's neck and both his arms around Arin like he would dissolve if Dan let go. 

Arin wanted to reach through the phone and just hold him. Touch him. See his eyes.

But he couldn't.

"Arin," Dan started.

"I tried!" Arin had interrupted Dan before he could get another word out. "I tried so hard these past two weeks to find the right things to say to you to convince you I'm sorry. I never stopped thinking about it. I had DREAMS that just kept replaying the whole thing in my head over and over. I tried these two weeks to find the right things to say Dan. Please. Please give me another chance."

Dan's voice sounded quiet, calm, and deliberate. "Arin, you just said two weeks. You had two weeks of absolute silence from me. Two weeks to figure out what to say. And in that two weeks, all you manage is a 'how's it going?'"

See, the thing about Dan, was that he was never a screamer when he got angry. When he would get angry, Dan wouldn't yell or scream or throw things. His anger was always a very internal kind of anger, that festered before bubbling up. Dan wouldn't boil. He'd seethe. Arin had only ever seen Dan get angry at something about two or three times. But it'd always go down roughly the same way.

Dan would try and make a joke of it and get it off his mind, whatever was making him angry. Usually, the worst anger was built out of frustration, so Dan would usually try and step back to calm his nerves before they got out of control. Then, if that didn't work, he would just start swearing under his breath to try and get the anger out in short bursts. Like letting water out of a full tub while the faucet was still running. 

After that, Dan would go real quiet and not make a sound. His eyes would narrow, and he would breathe through his nose on purpose so as to not open up his mouth and scream. But if you listened real close, you could hear the breath hiss as it came out of his nose. Like it was hot. 

And then if it got even worse, Dan would revert back to his child hood and ask to hold someone's hand. He usually held Arin's or Brian's because they were so close to him, and he would squeeze the absolute life out of them. He would squeeze until his anger either became too much or went away. If it went away, he apologized for squeezing so hard and continue with his day. If it didn't, Dan would real calmly ask to leave, and then he would without another word for the rest of the day.

That voice Dan would use to excuse himself. That was the voice he was using to talk to Arin right now. 

"Dan, please." Arin sounded so pathetic. 'Listen to yourself,' he thought, 'listen to how dumb you sound. You fucking idiot. There's no way to fix this.'

Or was there?

"Arin, how sorry are you?" Dan suddenly asked. This took Arin by surprise, and he didn't really know what to say for a second.

"Arin?" Dan repeated.

"I'm so sorry Dan. I am."

There was a brief pause as Dan seemed to be considering something. Arin heard him sigh. "Then come over here so we can talk about this. I'm not doing this over the phone."

A glimmer of hope took flame in Arin's chest. "Now?"

Dan replied flatly, "Now." and hung up the phone.

Arin stuffed the phone into his pocket and stood up so fast from the couch that he actually got dizzy for a second. But he ignored the passing feeling and rushed to the front door, slipping on his shoes and snatching his keys off the small side table near the door. 

He rushed to his car, unable to keep the smile that found its way across his face. In Arin's mind, the very back of it, he knew that this was no guarantee. No guarantee of this working out. But it was an opportunity. 

Arin fixed his unwashed hair with his hands as best he could, and started towards Dan's house. It was a sliver of a chance, shaky and uncertain. But while Arin drove to Dan's place ten miles above the speed limit, a single thought pervaded his mind.

It was still a chance.


End file.
